Local Brighton Founder Shortlisted for Social Good Entrepreneur of the Year.
Local entrepreneur Sanjay Lobo is shortlisted for Social Good Entrepreneur of the Year in the South East, recognising his work establishing and growing Brighton based startup onHand.
The social enterprise uses tech-for-good to match volunteers to people who need help with simple stuff in their area through the onHand app. Named ‘Uber for volunteers’ by IBM Watson Health they help support with activities like shopping, tech lessons, going for a walk or companionship. The kind of tasks that become more challenging when ageing and either family or expensive care agencies have to step in.
The Great British Entrepreneur Awards acknowledges the hard work and inspiring stories of entrepreneurs and businesses in the United Kingdom with many previous winners going on to become household names including the founders of BrewDog, Tangle Teezer, LAD Bible & The Cambridge Satchel Company.
For Sanjay Lobo the move to lead onHand was a first hand response to the care needs of our rapidly growing older adult population. He explains “It’s my dad’s fault. He’s 77, has Parkinson’s, dodgy hearing and lives alone. He’s in London, I’m in Brighton. Getting shopping, cleaning and other help has been difficult. He lives in an apartment block with access to professional carers — which is great. They’ll happily help with these things and even simpler things like companionship, dropping in to check-in and have a cup of tea and chat. Whilst it’s great this help is there, it’s costly at approx. £20/hour. Plus VAT. Getting help with a shop was costing more than the actual shop! onHand has solved this for my dad and now some 1000's of others. I want to solve the issue for millions of people.”
While based in Brighton the initiative was initially launched in London and now has ambitions to be active in the South East and nationwide by the end of the year through business partnerships. Sanjay Lobo says, “We know that sadly many organisations have paused Corporate Volunteering because of the necessary safety issues COVID-19 has caused. We can solve that. By basing volunteering opportunities close to the employees location and enabling volunteering whenever works for the employees schedule, we can be a Corporate Volunteering solution for the new world and we’re keen to bring this to businesses in the South East. By including remote, shift-based, gig, seasonal and even furloughed employees CSR impact for companies will be even bigger.”